I don’t have a common job. Which is why it’s always interesting to hear where people’s minds go when they first hear about information architecture. During lunch, I was telling someone I recently met about what I do. They put their fork down and started sharing. They were facing a big issue at work. He said, “After spending weeks on this project, if my team and I were working from the same version, that’s because of pure luck.” Their internal documentation system was such a mess, that finding things was a nightmare. There was no “folder structure” to speak of, no categories, no groupings. At any given moment, the document he was looking for could be in one of three different places, or all three. Document names weren’t clear. They didn’t follow the same naming standards across teams in the un org. Searching didn’t help. It took time and a lot of tries to find the right document. And pure luck, as he put it.
IA is the practice of structuring information, and this is an information architecture problem. In the Little Language Models newsletter, I talk about findability, consistency, content effectiveness, and generally share tips on creating findable, relevant, and timely content for websites, apps, SaaS, and internal systems. Today, let’s talk about groupings.
In information architecture, grouping is the process of placing similar items together to improve user understanding, speed up information retrieval, and reduce cognitive load.
Grouping can be as straightforward as:
- helping size 39 shoe wearers find shoes that fit by grouping shoes by size
- having a brunch menu section that lists vegan options
Grouping helps improve user understanding by providing a framework for similar items. For example, you may be confused if I mention a red object that curves upward, with deep ruby tones swirling in a twisted pattern, adding movement and tactile appeal. However, you’ll immediately know what I’m talking about if you see the red object and others in Vases (grouping) in a home decor online store.
Grouping speeds up information retrieval by organizing the content for users. For example, if you want to show your friend who’s going to Florence photos you took in a neighborhood you really think she would like, it would take a while to find them, going through the thousands of photos in your camera roll. Your friend might say it’s fine, really, really, she’ll open it in Maps, really, it’s fine, oh, they’re closing the bar, we have to leave now. However, since most phones nowadays group your photos by year and location, you’ll be able to find the photos quite quickly.
Grouping reduces cognitive load by requiring less active involvement from users. For example, in the tire width example below, users have to select each relevant option. The width options aren’t sorted in descending or ascending order, but rather by in-store tire availability, which isn’t nearly as relevant to users as it is to the business. Offering width ranges or the option to sort by size would make this easier for users and require less active involvement from them for each relevant filter.
Grouping is a powerful information architecture principle. Organizing information is a skill, especially if you want categories that are intuitive to new and advanced users alike, visually elegant, and genuinely useful.
But creating groupings can be as simple as the company needs it to be.
- Invite a colleague or three and dedicate a day to coming up with potential categories for your product
- Dedicate an hour a week to reviewing reviews of your product
- Talk to someone from the customer success team and ask them about common frustrations they hear about
- Talk to someone from sales about common objections they hear about switching to your product
- Look at screen recordings for patterns in how users look for information within your product
- Dedicate an hour a week to reviewing search terms and searches started in business-critical pages
Even if your team doesn’t have a research budget, use analytics tools, or have access to other teams, you can still come up with suggested categories, test them with a small percentage of users, and report back on their success.
Grouping success in information architecture can sound like:
65% of users engaged with new categories, resulting in a 10% boost in purchases and a 15% increase in total purchase value.
75% of users engaged with new categories, resulting in a 20% increase in resource downloads.
Users who engaged with the new categories saved an average of 2 minutes in finding and submitting the correct form.
90% of users accurately tagged their requests using the new tags, a 45% improvement over the current ones.
Some businesses will need taxonomy spreadsheets that can flex to accommodate hundreds of groupings, and affinity maps, and card sorts, and tree tests. But not all, and many businesses–and users–can greatly benefit from the added clarity that thoughtful groupings provide.
One of my favorite psychology publications, Psyche, recently published an article about how it’s easy to feel lost when you’re working on something new, but that rough patch is actually an encouraging signal. I love seeing my worlds (psychology, IA) intersect, so I copied this quote about categories, which I hope drives you to act:
”While working on her PhD, the qualitative researcher Anuja Cabraal spent weeks categorising interview transcripts, only to find that parts of the data refused to fit her framework. ‘I felt confused and lost, like I was doing it all wrong,’ she told me. Only later did she realise that this period of confusion – what she now calls ‘the golden time’ – was when she stopped forcing the data into existing categories and started inventing new ones. The mess she experienced for a while wasn’t failure; it was her thinking expanding as she created a framework the data actually needed.”
Struggling with creative work doesn’t mean you’re failing, Chris Smith, Psyche
AI Policy: I personally write each draft and final copy on this website. All content reflects my own thinking, ideas, style, and craft. I do not use AI such as ChatGPT to generate articles. Occasionally, I ask AI such as Formalizer or Claude to summarize or restate my own ideas and may restructure sections based on the response.
You may also like:
- How this hospital prevents blocked elevator entrances through a core information architecture principle – Spoiler: The principle is grouping!
- How to organize 3 acquired companies into one coherent website – Examples of groupings in healthcare
- 3 website lessons from HOKA, one of the fastest growing sport brands – I love that HOKA’s groupings consider different ways users may be looking for shoes
- “But it’s right there on the website!” – A few reasons why users may be struggling with the new feature you launched, including incorrect groupings
